Sunday, August 31, 2008

Mr. Superiority

You've probably met this guy before, too. It's not the same guy, but every town seems to have a few of 'em. It's the guy (or gal) who works at the local home improvement store that goes out of his way to make you, the customer, feel stupid. This guy answers every question with another question designed to make you feel inferior for even asking the question. Before he's gonna help you, he'll make sure you know he's smarter, more experienced, and superior in every way to you. When he finally does answer a question, he'll be intentionally cryptic. He'll throw in a few technical terms for the pleasure of seeing you wrinkle your brow in confusion. He'll turn away and pretend to go back to whatever he was doing before you bothered him so that you have to get his attention again to make further inquiries. Then he'll turn back to you with this look of "What? You're so dense that my answer didn't sufficiently enlighten you, you idiot?"

So now you have to parry back and forth to get the information you require. He'll talk in circles until he's reached some orgasmic tipping point where he feels he can actually provide the information you sought with some degree of clarity.

And then, this is the part that really pisses me off. The guy suddenly turns very friendly and polite so that any inclination you might have had to tell him off would make you seem to be the unreasonable one.

It's not like I was asking for instructions on how to assemble a ten-story building. I just wanted to know about paint primer, for gawds sake!

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